The tightly knit, intricate tapestry that is Westworld is slowly unraveling. The thread is being pulled as one stitch gives way to the next one.
The second episode of "Westworld" continues to show the evolution of these weathered robots while also giving us the perspective of a young guest making his first trip to this land of possibility.
The episode begins from the perspective of this visitor, William, played by Jimmi Simpson, as he is sleeping on a train. His friend, accurately first referred to as an asshole, acts like an old hat toward this whole Westworld experience.
It is likely a nod to the original film, in which we begin on a train, with a Westworld veteran escorting a naive guest to the time of his life.
"Are you real?" William asks his robotic host when he arrives at the futuristic Westworld terminal.
"Well, if you can't tell does it matter?" she responds ominously.
Meanwhile, Dolores is walking through town when she hears a voice, Bernard's, telling her to remember. She turns around and can see the slaughter that took place the day before. She tells Thandie Newton's escort character, Maeve, the famous line about those darn violent delights, before sauntering along her day.
William's jerk friend, Logan, whispers in William's ear that this place, chock-full of violence and sex, is the answer to the question of who we really are. Westworld is clearly an answer to humankind's primal needs. And he warns William that people can become addicted and lose themselves in the experience.
Speaking of people who get lost in Westworld, the Man In Black has been up to no good. He hogties a character ready to be hung and slaughters a few other robots in search of the entrance to the deepest level of the game.
Maeve is entertaining a guest before she is struck with a flashback of atrocities committed upon her by guests, presumably.
These guests, in fulfilling their every desire while taking this "vacation," have clearly committed unspeakable acts, and it is dangerous that these robots are beginning to remember.
Maeve is rebooted and her aggression is dialed up before we are taken to Bernard and his crisis of character across the hall.
"You can't play God without being acquainted to the Devil," Ford tells Bernard to ease the pain of decommissioning his designs.
Bernard interviews Dolores, who clearly is beginning to learn a little more than she was designed to. Bernard decides to hide from others this pattern, as he is curious to see the end result.
We go back to Maeve, demonstrating her newfound aggression with a female client. She has a quick interaction with another robot escort, coaching her on how to make the nightmares go away. Is it just another piece of scripted dialogue or are the nightmares a result of something deeper? It is hard to tell. Maeve then has a nightmare of her own, another memory, and she freezes. Stubbs, Luke Hemsworth's enforcer character, decides to mark her for recall after she has her last night out.
We then get more insight into William and Logan, work associates. While Logan has himself a grand old time, stabbing treasure hunters and indulging his bedroom fantasies, William explains that he has a real woman waiting for him back home. Despite the nature of Westworld, William has proven so far to be a nice guy and has resisted the temptation.
The MiB is off having his own storyline with the criminal Laurence. He discovered that Laurence has a family in a small town and is delighted to have discovered another of Westworld's little secrets. The whole scene would be heartwarming as the hardened criminal reunites with his family, if it weren't for the unsettling presence of the MiB.
"In the real world there is chaos, accidents, but in here every detail adds up to something — even you, Laurence," the MiB says before revealing that he is looking for the entrance to a maze.
We quickly flash to Stubbs, who acknowledges the MiB is a man who gets whatever he wants in Westworld.
The MiB finds himself surrounded by Laurence's cousins. Following a fight scene that resembles a video game on God mode, topped off by a shot through an adobe wall, Laurence's daughter stiffens up and robotically reveals the path to the maze.
On the outskirts of Westworld, Ford is having a reflective moment with a small child. He shows exactly how much control he has over Westworld, making church bells ring and freezing snakes with the flick of his wrist.
"Everything in this world is magic, except to the magician," Ford says.
Then we get a weird scene where Bernard and Theresa Cullen (Sidse Babett Knudsen), who appears to be the business manager of the park, sleep together. Not sure how much I can say about that; I'm curious to see the point of it.
We are taken to the decommissioning of Maeve. Elsie Hughes, a programmer portrayed by Shannon Woodward, is recalibrating Maeve's settings.
"Could you imagine how [expletive] we'd be if these poor assholes ever remember what the guests do to them?" Elsie says while the camera lingers on Maeve's frozen face. It might just be projections but I could almost see the pain hiding behind Maeve's eyes in this scene, the inner turmoil present in anyone who goes through trauma.
Elsie talks about how the robots are given the concept of nightmares in case a robot's memories are not erased during maintenance, which explains the interaction Maeve had earlier.
Maeve is put back out onto the field, and appears to be operating normally. She and Teddy share dialogue about transgressions and sins. Then we are treated with another tragic death of Teddy, which appears to be turning into the running gag of the show.
Maeve lies down for the evening and has a prolonged nightmare where Native Americans attack her and her daughter. It appears as if one is going to break in to her home when the MiB makes a surprise, unwelcome appearance. Maeve closes her eyes and wills herself out of her nightmare and straight on to the maintenance table.
While being operated on, Maeve wakes up. She threatens the clueless maintenance workers with a scalpel before running away in her birthday suit with a giant gash along her abdomen.
She happens upon a room where the robots are being washed down. While the actual act is innocent and harmless, to her it looked like an atrocity comparable to genocide: lifeless, naked robot bodies being stacked upon one another and washed down.
Maeve is given an injection to put her down again while one rattled worker swears that he put her in sleep mode.
A harsh transition takes us to Dolores waking up in the dead of night. With a zombie-like gate, she makes her way outside and stops, uttering, "You." She then bends down and digs a revolver out of the ground. I have more than a few questions, the main one being: Um… what?
We move on to Lee, the scriptwriter, detailing his newest storyline. The Odyssey on Red River is a storyline for skilled players who move toward the outskirts of the map. While delivering his, pitch he labels the story the guest's next obsession, which speaks to the goal of the amusement park. Guests should become obsessed with Westworld, and never want to turn away.
But Ford immediately rejects the storyline.
"It's not about giving the guests what you think they want. It's not that simple," Ford says. "The guests don't return for the obvious things we do. … They come back because of the subtleties, the details."
Ford continues, saying that the park does not show guests who they are, it shows guests who they could be. Ford wants people to fall in love in the park and with the park, and that goes beyond the obvious "cheap thrills." Meanwhile, William finds himself tipping his cap to subtly dangerous Dolores.
The episode ends with Ford and Bernard taking a walk through the artificial countryside. Bernard reminds Ford that the board is asking for a new storyline. Ford and assures Bernard that he has one that's long in the making, one that is original.
The end of the episode seems to be a meta wink to the viewers of the show. We hear of a story rife with gunfire, sex and drama — everything a person wants. But Ford, the showrunner of sorts, rejects this story. He wants a story of that keeps people coming back because of its meticulous design and thoughtful narrative. Most of all, he wants something original.
This seemed to me to be the promise of the show. "Westworld" will not be the "Westworld" we were given in 1973. It will not be a retread of worn ideas. Nor will "Westworld" be a typical Western romp. "Westworld" will be original, something that thrills and entertains but has a deeper purpose behind it.
As these robots evolve into something more than human, and humans in the park devolve into primates, something might be revealed about the nature of humanity. Not who we are, but who we could be.